Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.
But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.
The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama’s organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.
In the last battleground, Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign was six days behind Mr. Obama in putting up ads and had only four campaign offices to his 11. Even as Mrs. Clinton clings to her latest firewall — the March 4 contests — she is still being outhustled. Last week she told reporters that she “had no idea†that the Texas primary system was “so bizarre†(it’s a primary-caucus hybrid), adding that she had “people trying to understand it as we speak.†Perhaps her people can borrow the road map from Obama’s people. In Vermont, another March 4 contest, The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five days ago. For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn’t file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.
This is the candidate who keeps telling us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.
What has struck me about the Clinton campaign is that the candidate seems to confuse “effort” with “accomplishment.” She tells us she has “fought for” this and that for many years — true enough — but how many of those battles have been won?
Last week there was much hoo-hawing among the Clintonistas about a fellow on MSNBC’s Hardball who could not list any legislative accomplishments of Senator Obama. The Clinton campaign pushed that episode hard, to contrast it with Senator Clinton’s glittering legislative record. But notice, no one actually challenged Senator Clinton to list her legislative accomplishments.
Last week Adam Hanft took a look at Senator Clinton’s legislative record, and found it to be “a track record of legislative failure and futility.”
I headed straight for her campaign website to see what glorious aspects of her vaunted experience I was missing.
Actually, I was missing nothing. There is not one single example of any legislation with her name appended to it. In fact, the page devoted to her Senate biography is a mush-mash, a laundry list of good intentions. When she talks about “sponsoring” and “introducing” and “fighting for” legislation that obviously hasn’t passed, that’s a smokescreen for failure. By introducing all that legislation that never makes it out of committee, she’s guilty of what she accuses Senator Obama of: confusing “hoping” with doing. [emphasis added]
This is what continues to drive me bats about Clinton supporters. They have bought the line that Obama and his supporters are space cadets who don’t appreciate substance. Yet Clinton’s record of accomplishment is nothing but padding, and they don’t notice.
Back to Adam Hanft:
Consider these examples:
• “…{she} worked with her colleagues to secure the funds New York needed to recover and rebuild.”
• “…she fought to provide compensation to the families of the victims.”
• “She is an original sponsor of legislation that expanded health benefit to members of the National Guard and Reserves.”
• “Some of Hillary’ proudest achievements have been her work to ensure the safety of prescription drugs for children, with legislation now included in the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act.” (What in God’s name does that mumbo-jumbo mean?)
Yes, it’s true that for many years, she was in the minority. But if she is the effective legislator she claims to be, she’d be able find co-sponsors across the aisle who share her commitment to specific issues, in the same way that John McCain found his doppelganger, Russ Feingold.
David Knowles wrote in January that in 2007, Senator Clinton introduced 100 pieces of legislation. Of those, six were enacted. These are:
1. support for the goals and ideals of “National Purple Heart Recognition Day”
2. a concurrent resolution recognizing the 75th anniversary of the Military Order of the Purple Heart
3. a bill to recognize the goals of Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month
4. a bill to urge a international organization to allow access to Holocaust archives
5. a resolution calling for Hamas and Hezbollah to release Israeli soldiers held captive
6. recognition of the uncommon valor of Wesley Autrey, the man who jumped on to the subway tracks and saved a man’s life
Obama’s legislative record is similarly light. The plain fact is that both Clinton and Obama are junior senators, and their legislative accomplishments, or lack thereof, reflect that. Yet Clinton supporters continue to insist that their candidate is the one with experience and accomplishment who knows how to get things done. And Obama supporters are just caught up in a cult of personality.
On top of which, some Clinton supporters are still arguing that she would be the stronger candidate in the general election, even as her campaign for the nomination flounders.
Right. Um, who’s getting real, dears?
Update: Read Jeff Fecke.